


crying to confuse the brave

by pansexual_intellectual



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anna - Freeform, Break Up, F/M, Female Louis Tomlinson, Getting Back Together, Harry Styles/Female Louis Tomlinson, Male Harry Styles, Song: Anna (Harry Styles), coincidentally titled homosexuality, copious references to frank o'hara, one of his poems, or more specifically, pay attention to me im needy, the world is funny innit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:34:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pansexual_intellectual/pseuds/pansexual_intellectual
Summary: They’ve been broken up scarcely two weeks whenithappens.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Kudos: 21





	crying to confuse the brave

**Author's Note:**

> So, in this mini-verse, things are pretty much the same except for the fact that they're allowed to be public with their relationship, because it's het. (ew i know, homophobia *barf*). However, that doesn't mean they don't deal with their own slew of issues: misogyny, slut-shaming, etc.
> 
> also, in this universe you can assume either Louis is the only girl One Direction member OR she's a member of Little Mix. I haven't decided yet, and I may write more of this universe.
> 
> also, i wrote this in a huge rush and under an hour. consider yourself warned.
> 
> p.s. i wrote this by listening to 'Anna', both from concert footage and this wonderful artist called Emma Beckett who did a cover on YouTube. Her songs, both cover and original, are insanely underrated, and the things her voice does to 'Anna', it's unbelievable.

So, Harry’s been- well, quite frankly, Harry’s been an arsehole, he knows- shouting at people for everything and nothing, staring moodily off into the distance, writing angry, heartbroken, lyrics in his journals, half of which are half-way decent. He hums melodies into Voice Memos that end in sobs and is too embarrassed to show them to Jeff; he listens to them over and over and finishes one the day after he sees Lou again for the first time, curled up with Liam on the sofa outside the recording studio because  fuck , that’s not fair, how she looks so sad and tired and lovely, eyes shining like broken blue glass. He wants to put his mouth all over her and kiss the traces of wetness away from her eyelashes. 

Tears . Louis has been  crying ; what the fuck, no one is allowed to make her cry but Harry (he sees, leitmotif-bright against his retinas, a vision of Lou fucked out and gasping, eyes wet and blue and pupils blown huge). He sees red for a moment before he remembers that they’ve just broken up and Lou is probably sad too and he’s not the only one with emotions. And then he wants to cry all over again and press kisses to her skin and say sorry, sorry, sorry we weren’t good enough.  _Could we ever be enough? Baby we could be enough-_

And he’s been staring at her for a few minutes now, eyebrows furrowed and lips bitten. She can feel his stare, he knows, because she’s curled up against it, around it, bright head ducked into Liam’s armpit.

“Lou,” Harry says, just one word, his voice breaking, and she’s stiffening, curling further into Liam and Harry wants to touch her so bad he’s breaking apart. 

“H.” Liam barks, commanding and Harry hates him more than he’s ever hated anyone, ever, but he’s running, wrenching the door open and flinging himself towards sunlight. 

“It’s a bright summer’s day,” Harry says nonsensically through the shouting of the paps, “And I want to be wanted more than anything in the world.” 

Anyway, he goes home, the image of Lou’s tears in his mind- he can’t get away from it, fuck, he made her cry - and her eyes are always so goddamn bright but they’re dull, now. Aren’t eyes supposed to shine with tears? Or maybe they were shining, just in a different way, and every time Harry sees her face he’s lost. There’s only so much I can take, Harry thinks. Louis Anna Tomlinson. Fuck.

“ _There’s only so much I can take,_ ” Harry sings, and then, more confident: “ _Every time I see your face there’s only so much I can take, oh, Anna_ .” He’s crying now, proper sobbing. Lou’s face as he’d ran, scared and shattered and wet- more than that, Lou’s face when he’d walked out the first time, a plate thrown at the wall narrowly missing his head in a burst of china. Beautiful, terrible. He doesn’t know where they went wrong, fuck. 

“ _I don’t want your sympathy, but you don’t know what you do to me, oh Anna._ ” He’s humming out the backing track now, too, working on the other lyrics,  _don’t know where you’re laying, just know it’s not with me. I don’t know what I’d tell you if I passed you on the street._

By the end of it, he’s gotten a song down and he’s been crying, but that’s par for the course. (He puts it down next to a song called ‘Two Ghosts’ that he’s been too scared to show to anyone.)

  


  


  


  


  


They’ve been broken up scarcely two weeks when _it_ happens.

Paparazzi are nothing new; Harry gets this. Hate, misogyny- that’s nothing new either, Lou gets  _so_ much shit for dating him.

Lots of ‘so they pass you around, do they?’ and ‘how’s it feel to be the slut’. Harry wants to rip out every one of their bones. It’d been even worse once people found out they were dating, surprisingly- teenage girl fans hazing her for dating their obsession. And Harry’s spent plenty of nights curled around her after particularly bad days, worshipping her with his mouth and hands and skin, moving inside her and murmuring words not meant for anyone but her to hear. It had been one of the things that had broken them, Harry thinks- how much shit Lou got, that weighed against how much she loved him, and how at first it had been worth it and then towards the end she wasn’t so sure anymore. He isn’t sure, either- his thoughts go blurry and incoherent when he thinks about The End.

Anyway, it affects her, he knows it affects her, fuck, he knows more than anyone. But. She’s never- she’s never shown it in public, and Harry can’t- fuck.

Harry wakes up at seven to a barrage of texts and calls from Paul, the boys, everyone but Louis. There’s a link, and Harry clicks on it, absentmindedly swigging a bottled smoothie.

It’s a blurred YouTube video, and in it is Lou. Harry freezes, throat gone tight and strained. Louis is gorgeous and tired-looking, wrapped in a pair of trackies- her arse, fuck - and an old tartan coat. There are fans, screaming hateful things and paps and the things they  say. Fuck. “How does it feel to know Harry finally realised how much better he can do?” One girl screams. Others are more explicit: “ You’re such a slut, you don’t deserve him .” “ He finally dumped you, eh? ” One pap cackles. “ Bet you cheated on him, didn’t you, you slag .”

And Lou’s alone, all alone in this storm of people, and Harry sees,  sees the moment she realises she won’t be able to get to her cab, sees the moment she gives up and sinks to the ground.

Sees the moment she puts her head in her hands, sees her shoulders shaking, curling around herself. Tears.

There’s a crack, and Harry realises he’s been squeezing his smoothie so hard the glass’s cracked. Harry tosses it away and is in a cab speeding towards the studio, Liam in his ear, before he can blink.

  


Lou’s empty-eyed in a room, curled up in a blanket with the boys all around her when Harry storms in. Liam and Niall glance up, uncertain, but Harry pays them no mind; his girl needs him. Fuck.

“Lou, Lou,” Harry murmurs, and he’s shoving his way through their little huddle, curling his body around hers and sliding his hands under her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her hair and tangling her legs with his. He knows Louis; when she’s like this, she needs contact.

“Hazza.” Lou chokes out, and then she’s sobbing into his shoulder, Harry mumbling comforting nonsense under his breath. God, fuck, he’s never seen Louis cry so unabashedly. “They don’t mean shit,” Harry says into the shell of her ear, watching the way she shivers. “The things they say don’t mean shit. You matter more to me than a thousand of them ever could, alright? We broke up and both of us are messes and none of it was ever your fucking fault, Lou. None of it, hear me?” He’s being too- harsh, maybe, gritting his words out like they hurt, but he needs this. Louis needs this too, by the way she’s shivering, arching upwards to get closer to his words.

“You’re so much better than any of them.” Harry continues, hands roving and tucking her more securely against him. “I don’t know what the fuck they thought they were saying- better than you - I’m never going to do better than you, _fuck_.  Fuck .” He breaks after that, coughing out a wet sob and pressing his mouth into the skin of her neck. 

“And- and,” Harry says after he’s gotten himself together a bit more, blinking tears back, “You are not a  _slut_ , Christ- they have no right to call anyone that, anyone, but especially not you.  _Lou_ .”

Louis turns, arms shifting in his hold, squirming- he lets her, confused, and then she’s turning upwards, straddling his hips, gorgeous and teary-eyed and vulnerable. The boys have left, Harry notices.

“You- you- you said you didn’t know,” Louis hiccups, “That you didn’t know whether or not I’d ever-” And then her words are lost in a torrent of sobs.

Harry is confused- but then, all of a sudden, he gets it. They’d been fighting, they’d been doing that a lot- throwing words at each other, rooted in emotion and not fact. He’d accused her of cheating, he remembers, horribly. Accused of her of not loving him. He feels sick to his stomach. “ Lou . Fuck. You know I- of course not, love, of course I knew you would never, you would never, I  know . M’love, I know, I  know .” He doesn’t know what he’s saying, God he doesn’t know what he’s  saying .

“Y-you’d said you didn’t care whether I s-s-stayed or left and then they- they, I, I just,” Louis breaks off, shuddering, and Harry can’t breathe. 

“Lou,” Harry says softly, clearly, hands cupping her face and angling her so she’s looking into his eyes, sees how dead serious he is, “I care about you more than anything in the universe.”

She says nothing, watching him with wary blue eyes, and suddenly Harry spots Niall’s guitar and it’s like a stroke of genius; he stretches over and seizes it, nudging her ever-so-slightly off his lap so he can hold it right. 

“Wha-” Louis begins, and Harry presses a finger to her mouth. Shh.

“ _Don’t know where you’re laying,_ ” Harry sings, “ _Just know it’s not with me. I don’t know what I’d tell you if I passed you on the street._ ”

Louis is watching him, a hand pressing to her mouth, looking young and dizzy. “ _I don’t want your sympathy, but you don’t know what you do to me_ ,” Harry sings, high and broken and perfect, purposefully holding eye contact, “ _Oh, Anna._ ”

“ _Every time I see your face, there’s only so much I can take, Oh Anna!_ ”

He sings the rest, humming the parts that he isn’t certain about, which makes Louis snort which makes Harry grin so hard he forgets more lyrics, and, well.

“Lou,” Harry says after he’s finished. “Every one of my songs is about you.”

Louis lets out a high noise, and suddenly Harry’s heartbreakingly, dizzyingly, hopeful. I’ll be anything, he thinks, do anything on the earth, just please don’t cry again, never cry again. My love.

“Louis,” Harry says again, just “Lou, Lou,” over and over, and then Louis’ kissing him, soft and tentative and it’s a summer’s day and he wants her, wants her, wants her.  _All I do is want you_ .

  


  


  


“I was afraid you’d leave me, and you did.” Louis says, later, and Harry shivers. She’s on top of him, eyes intent. “Never, I promise, never again.”

“Oh, you promise, huh, big boy?” Louis says, sarcastically, but there’s a glint in her eye and Harry’s saying “marry me, Lou” before he can think and there’s a moment of dizzying terror. Don’t cry, Harry thinks reflexively, but she’s smiling. “Is that a yes, or,” Harry begins, but then they’re kissing and everything’s gone and good.

  


  


  


They walk out in public the next day, hands intertwined. The media shitstorm is worth it, if only for the looks on their faces when they see the diamond ring perched on Lou’s finger. It’s a summer’s day and he wants for nothing.

  


  


**Author's Note:**

> |  **Homosexuality**  
>  |    
>   
> ---|---  
>   
> |  | So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping  
>  our mouths shut? as if we'd been pierced by a glance!  
>    
>  The song of an old cow is not more full of judgment  
>  than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick;  
>    
>  so I pull the shadows around me like a puff  
>  and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment  
>    
>  of a very long opera, and then we are off!  
>  without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet  
>    
>  will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon."  
>  It is the law of my own voice I shall investigate.  
>    
>  I start like ice, my finger to my ear, my ear  
>  to my heart, that proud cur at the garbage can  
>    
>  in the rain. It's wonderful to admire oneself  
>  with complete candor, tallying up the merits of each  
>    
>  of the latrines. 14th Street is drunken and credulous,  
>  53 rd tries to tremble but is too at rest. The good  
>    
>  love a park and the inept a railway station,  
>  and there are the divine ones who drag themselves up  
>    
>  and down the lengthening shadow of an Abyssinian head  
>  in the dust, trailing their long elegant heels of hot air  
>    
>  crying to confuse the brave "It's a summer day,  
>  and I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world."  
>    
>  **Frank O'Hara**  
> ---|---


End file.
